1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and system for controlling a blood processor. To be more particular, this invention is especially applicable to a blood processor that produces fibrin sealant. In its most specific embodiment, the invention is a method and system for controlling a blood processor to produce autologous fibrin sealant.
2. Related Art
A blood processor may be understood, in general is terms, as a machine that performs some process on blood. The blood may be human blood. A simple centrifuge may thus be thought of as a primitive blood processor.
Blood processors range in complexity from very simple to very complex. The complexity of a blood processor may be thought of as being in direct relation to the number, the kind, and the delicacy of the processes it performs.
For example, the separation of red blood cells with a centrifuge is, by itself, a fairly simple process. A blood processor to perform only such a separation needs only relatively simple controls, such as an on/off switch, a speed setting, or the like. In a similar vein, a highly complex apparatus for processing blood might require a myriad of controls.
Complex blood processing procedures may require several steps. The more complex a procedure is, the more desirable it becomes to automate as much of the procedure as possible so as to avoid human error and also to promote uniformity in execution of the steps.
To automate processing in a blood processor, it is known to include in the blood processor an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC). An ASIC is designed to control the operation of the blood processor through the several or many steps of a complex blood processing procedure. An ASIC is a reliable and useful control mechanism for automating a blood processor.
An ASIC is disadvantageous, however, in the respect that it cannot be freely modified. In a highly complex blood processor, capable of performing many different operations and steps, this is a disadvantage because new procedures or modifications of old procedures may be desired. A blood processor with only an ASIC cannot be freely modified to execute such procedures.
It is an object of the invention to provide a system for the convenient production and modification of the control programs that control the automated execution of blood processing procedures.
To achieve this objective, a blood processor is provided with a computer and memory, and external to the blood processor there is provided a general purpose computer system programmed with a convenient interface for creating scripts; the general purpose computer system translates the scripts into code of a custom interpretive language adapted to be interpreted by the computer in the blood processor, and the script of custom interpretive language instructions is written into the memory of the blood processor.
In one embodiment of the invention, multiple scripts are stored in the blood processor, and a barcode or the like on a disposable blood preparation unit indicates to the blood processor which of the multiple scripts should be invoked.
The invention will be better understood from the following description in which an exemplary embodiment is described in detail with the aid of the accompanying figures. It is to be understood that the described embodiment is merely an example of the realization of the invention and is for explanation only. In other words, the invention is not limited in its applicability to this one example.